Only Three Months

since I lost posted. Belated holiday wishes!

January already. We've had little winter, but now it's cold. Too cold. Too cold for running (and hey, what else matters?). I'm bummed. A couple weeks ago I had the Broad Street in the bag (it's a 10 miler in May). With four months to go I was pounding out 9 miles in 90 minutes in the 'hood, which is considerably more challenging than flying straight down Broad Street on an almost imperceptible decline. Now I burn calories worrying that I'm going to lose my edge, and there wasn't much of one to start!

So now I'm stuck in the gym. Classes five days a week, with Saturday and Sunday on my own, occasionally including a good 7-8 miler weekly if the gods cooperate. Or if I stop being a wuss. The latter is by far more unlikely.

I took my first step class today. Well, first in about 15 years. Felt like a jerk. Thankfully there was also one other new person, and she was considerably less coordinated than me. Not to rejoice in another's shortcomings, but hey, better her than me. Good class though, with my favorite instructor, an impossibly tiny, uncommonly energetic woman triathlete 8 months along with her third child. Talk about motivation. When you can't keep up with the pregnant chick, you're in a bad way.

So as I kind of see this blog morphing into a fitness journal, running log, dietary diary (occasional political rants notwithstanding), a short history of the journey so far, and a weak attempt at justifying my escalating addiction to exercise (see DSM-IV, "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder").

I've always been an on-again-off-again exerciser. At times I've really enjoyed belonging to a gym, but then I stopped pushing a bar and started pushing out kids. In September 2005 we joined a Y, figuring that the discounts for the programs the kids were using would about pay for it, and hey, we might work out too.

Somehow we found ourselves in the .06% of people who think that and then actually do. No one was more surprised than me and my chins.

It was slow going. Some time on the treadmill walking, some machines. Learned not to fall off the elliptical, and still recall the days when I struggled through a 10-minute-stint. I lost 5 pounds in 3 months (had decided not to adjust my diet til after the holidays). On a good day I could add a 5-minute jog to my treadmill routine. I was there 3 days/week, unless, you know, it was cold or raining or I got a better offer.

After the first of the year I started Weight Watchers. I'm really good at starting WW. I start it all the time. I stuck with it for a couple months, dropping 10 pounds. For years I'd considered vegetarianism, and it suddenly occurred to me that there was no good reason in the world not to do it (all the good reasons to do it will likely appear in another entry/rant). So I did. Cold, um, turkey. I had intended to do it more slowly but didn't see the point. I had intended to eat fish occasionally, but again, why? So now I'm 100% ovo-lacto, and consume no flesh products. Gotta draw the line somewhere. Good thing I never liked Jello.

Anyway, new vegetarianism and WW didn't mix for me. I had to concentrate on nutrients, not points. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that they didn't need to mix. By listening to my body, feeding it when it was hungry, and doing a quick mental risk/benefit analysis of everything I ate, I made the right choices...without scales, or sliderules, or journals. Party-time, excellent.

Yada yada yada, I continued to lose weight, started running, started really liking the way I looked, and felt, started wanting more and more, changed Ys, added great classes, learned my way around the weight room, and today I am 35 pounds lighter, 5 sizes smaller, and in better shape than I've ever been (that's so cliche but it's true. Honest Injun.). My goals this year include 2 half-marathons. I never thought I was that person. I still can't believe I am that person, and go to bed every night afraid that my resolve to eat properly will gone in the morning; my drive to set goals and achieve and set higher goals will have evaporated overnight.

So yeah, I'm obssessive. I get a serious case of ant-in-the-pants when I miss a workout. I get angry with myself when I have a bad day. But, damn, it feels goooooooood.

As I say in every post, I want to write more. Watch this space for reviews on some classes I've taken, race stats and photos, and monthly tirades on Why Perimenopause Sucks Donkey D*&%. And of course, as the hats fly into the ring, as the escalation comes to fruition, as the impeachment hearings begin (a girl can dream, right?), I might have a word or two to spare in that arena as well.